Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Obama/Bush Nearly Divided

Americans are now pretty evenly divided about whether they would rather have Barack Obama or George W. Bush in the White House. 48% prefer Obama while 46% say they would rather have the old President back.

Bush had atrocious approval ratings for his final few years in office, particularly because he lost a lot of support from Republicans and conservative leaning independents. Those folks may not have liked him but they now say they would rather have him back than Obama. 87% of GOP voters now say they would prefer Bush, a number a good deal higher than Bush's approval rating within his party toward the tail end of his Presidency. Democrats predictably go for Obama by an 86/10 margin, and independents lean toward him as well by a 49/37 spread.

These numbers suggest some peril for Democrats in making Bush a focus of their messaging this fall. A lot of folks who contributed to the former President's low level of popularity now like Obama even less. Figuring out a way to make voters change their minds about the current President would be a much more effective strategy for Democrats than continuing to try to score points off the former one.

I'd prefer Bush right now. He was a big spender, but even he had his limits. With Bush, there would be no Porkulus, no Obamacare, and no threat of crap-and-betrayed. Unfortunately he did support amnesty which is in no small part why conservatives got fed up with him in his last couple years in office.

The numbers do not add up. How can this be so close. If the Dems prefer Obama and the Independents favor the One. The Dems and GOP should cancel each other out in the polling (keeping the numbers about even but favoring the One since we always here there is more Dems then there is Republicians) Then it would come down to the delta between the independents which in thise article favors the One by a large margin, much more the 2%.

If this is correct then alot more folks now claim to be a Repubiclian then a Demcrocrat.

The fact that you find it newsworthy that Republicans would rather have Bush than Obama is laughable. You needed a poll to tell you this? Really? Breaking news: water wet, sky blue, grass green. More at 11...

While I think Tom is getting beaten up unnecessarily it shouldn't be a surprise that no matter how far to the left Republicans felt Bush was that Obama is further left. The question that should be asked is how independents broke down a year ago vs. today.

Harry Truman was as unpopular as Bush, but today that's changed. LBJ, Carter, and Nixon were far more unpopular when they left office than they are today. Some people were better off under Bush and would prefer his policies, where they wouldn't a year and a half ago.

I think because George W Bush has been out of the spotlight and the economy hasn't improved under Obama, people are beginning to forgive Bush. This doesn't mean they'll vote for another Bush any time soon.

Wow, Americans really have short memories!!! It was Bush and his cronies who lied us into the Iraq War with thousands of lives lost, billions of dollars wasted and unaccounted for, the Katrina debacle, deregulation of banks and the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. How quickly we forget that Bush and the Republican Party were responsible for just about dismantling America.

I guess Republican would rather return to a government that deregulates anything, so anyone can take out loans again and have the economy collapse; I guess they want Bush in office again so he can declare war on who know what country. I don't approve of much of what Obama has done, and I'm quite disappointed in him, but I still prefer him over Bush. Lets not forget the mess we are in was caused by Bush. It's easier to get into a hole than to get out of.

The poll is as far as I understand RV and looking at pollster.com's RV aggregate they got D+2 in party identification, so PPP is not that far off if they split down the middle between dems and republicans.

However for "All Americans", pollster.com got D+8 and much more indies so had PPP polled All Americans instead of RVs this would have looked much different.

Given that Tom writes this up as the opinions of "Americans" it's in fact a wee bit dishonest. It's not the opinion of Americans - it's the opinion of ppl registered to vote in the midterms.

I think his analysis is also slightly off. He says that focusing on Bush may not pay off for dems. But I'd say you could read this as republicans and right leaning indies are at the moment registered to vote since they are more enthusiastic but there's a lot of dems and indies that don't like Bush at all and they might register and vote if reminded of Bush and if they believed a republican takeover would lead to Bush policies....

Bush passed more regulations than any President. He didn't deregulate anything. All the deregulation happened under Bill Clinton. The financial deregulation was 1999-2000. But blame Bush. It's a better narrative. Who cares if it's true?

Whatever the poll reveals, I would not choose any of of them. I'd rather go and vote for someone new. I'll vote for a presidential candidate who will listen to the people, will care for the people and will do what the people wants and not what he wants to do.